.jpg)
In the Book
of Genesis, God discusses creating humankind “…in our image, after our
likeness…” It is not the only instance in which the deity appears to refer to
another being present by using the plural term. It is more than a passing use
of language. What we know from earlier writings is that there actually was more
than one, because God, or ‘El’ in the texts, had a consort, whose name was
Asherah. While the Hebrew Bible does not explicitly state that Yahweh had a wife, there are references to Asherah in the context of worship and religious practices in ancient Israel and Judah.
What happened? The goddess who was God’s equal partner was quietly edited out
of the texts so that the masculine deity could take the credit for creating
everything. But it did not end there. Asherah was turned into a wooden idol
that had to be destroyed, and her destruction marked the definitive end of any
female deity in the whole of scripture. And so we speak only of “God the
Father” and “God the Son”.
But in other beliefs we know that Osiris had his Isis, Odin had his Freya,
Jupiter had his Juno, Zeus had his Hera, and Shiva has his Shakti. And yet
Asherah was depicted as the very Tree of Life, nurturing her creatures who
sought sustenance from her branches, for what she fed them from her leaves
would always grow back in abundance.
Asherah, then, was seen as the provider and the sustainer of life, and not just
as its co-creator. How much have we lost in what is now the world’s most
widespread religion by banishing this vital sustaining female life force from
scripture?
